Putting Windows 7 on an old laptop, should I install 32 bit or 64 bit?

As it turns out my school gives me access to MSDNAA, and so I can download and install the RTM version Windows 7 rather than futzing about with my upgrade coupon. I've already upgraded my newer laptop to Windows 7 64 bit, and since I'm able to, I figure I may as well put Windows 7 on my old laptop as well, since it still sees quite a bit of use. However, I'm not too savvy with the differences between 32 and 64 bit Windows, and am not sure which I should install. It's an MSI 1013, with an AMD ML-30 CPU, Radeon 200M IGP, and 2 gigs of RAM. I do play lots of older PC games on the laptop in question (Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Pharaoh, Dungeon Keeper...), if that's at all relevant.

 

First check if you can get 64-bit drivers.

 

I think that is a Turion 64 processor. If the processor can support a 64 bit operating system you should be fine. I'd start with that.

 

I would put 32-bit on the older laptop. You have 2GB so memory > 3GB benefit is gone, plus you probably play older games on it, so backward compatibility is important.

 

I am running windows 7 RTM on my both E6400 and X61t, it works perfect on both machine, and I don't have any driver issue. I agree that check the drivers first before you jumping to 64bit.

 

Agreed. Unless you can go beyond 2GB memory that would be your limiting factor. True, 64-bit is the future, but as of yet few application are opptimized to take advantage of it.

 

I had the most ridiculous time trying to get 64bit to work on my desktop(never did really), but have not had any problems with 32bit, I only have 3GB of RAM, so 64 bit is useless anyways, I would recommend 32 bit though.

 

Okay, it sounds like 32 bit is the safer bet. Would there have been any benefit to using 64 bit anyway? Is the RAM limitation that only issue with 32 bit?

 

64-bit is also better when it comes to high end number crunching for numerical analysis or encryption, but I doubt you'll be trying to do those kind of things on this machine. You may theoretically run into problems in the future, if a newer program you want to run is coded to run only in 64-bit, but I don't expect that to happen for quite some time... and the programs that would be likely to be coded that way would probably require more robust hardware than that laptop could provide, anyway.

 

At the moment, probably not. But if MS gets it's way, the will change in time. It is a major task for manufacturers to configure their products to take advantage of 64-bit, so you proabably have some time before it becomes absolutely necessary.

On the other hand, if you just love being ahead of the crowd and state-of-the-art, then 64-bit OS is the way to go.